


Of Eros and of Dust

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee, The Normal Heart (2014)
Genre: Broadway, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, HIV/AIDS, M/M, Performing Arts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt volunteers to perform in Broadway Bares, a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, but doesn’t bargain becoming so emotionally invested when he signed up to strip for charity. Written for the Klaine Writers Challenge prompt “activism.” Warnings for non-graphic discussion of deaths due to AIDS, spoilers for a scene from The Normal Heart, and being completely unaffiliated with the real HIV/AIDS organizations mentioned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Eros and of Dust

Blaine is better at playing host for early arrivals while sleepy. Kurt is still half in another world. Alarms don’t rouse him, or ringing phones. Blaine kisses his cheek and it’s enough to make Kurt smile but not enough to open his eyes.

“C’mon, sweetie, it’s time and I don’t think I can carry you.” Blaine’s fingers caress where his lips touched on Kurt’s cheek. To the phone Blaine says, “We’ll be right there.”

Kurt peeks one eye open to take in the soft morning light. He gives himself another moment to process where he is. Kurt dreams about his work no matter what his work is, and each new role is disorienting when it crops up in his subconscious. He’s only doing one song this time; he didn’t think one song for a one-night performance would work its way under his skin like this.

“C’mon,” Blaine repeats. “I’ll let you sleep again in a moment.”

Kurt’s tongue feels as heavy as his sleep-clouded mind that can’t quite make sense of its surroundings. He groans. “You go. Mind the bodies.”

Blaine nudges him. “Kurt.”

He refocuses on Blaine and forces both eyes to stay open. Blaine looks down on him with charming eyebrows peaked and, oh, Blaine is worth keeping his eyes open for but it’s a struggle. He furrows his brow with the strain.

“Hey you. Don’t forget to smile tonight if you’re not going to do it now. You’ll be the most somber volunteer-stripper in the world.”

Hearing the words that are oddly specific to his life right now is like waking up all over again. Kurt realizes exactly where he is and what’s real and what isn’t. He huffs a laugh through a yawn and grabs for Blaine to lean against.

Blaine uses his grip on Kurt’s waist to steer him around the sleeping forms of all their out of town guests who needed a place to stay and in-town guests who didn't want to feel left out of the fun of cramming in together and keeping Kurt up the night before his performance.

Kurt shakes off somber dreams the rest of the way when he finds his face pressed into his father’s familiar shoulder seconds after the door opens. His voice pitches in hushed excitement.

“Ooh, I can't believe you flew out here! I was half-convinced it was all in my mind." He’d bounce in excitement if Burt’s hug weren’t so tight.

"What kind of exclamation is that? We're proud of you; of course we came." The whisper makes Burt’s voice gruffer than usual.

"I knew this would be how I’d win your approval," Kurt responds drolly. He switches with Blaine so he can hug Carole next. “I don’t think I’ve ever had this many people show up to a performance before.”

“Well, joke all you want, kid, but opening and closing in the span of one night puts pressure on the rest of us to get moving and we aren’t going to miss seeing you. Raising money for this group isn’t a bad excuse either,” Burt says.

Carole holds Kurt just as tight. "Your father has the poster hanging in a place of honor in the living room. It's become a conversation piece already. We’re _so_ proud."

"Tonight we’re going to compete for who can cheer the loudest. I'm going to win." Blaine grins. Never to be outdone, his husband.

“You two just wait for me to bring the competition,” Carole says. She stifles a yawn.

Kurt fights a yawn of his own.

“We’ll make the bed up for you,” Blaine says, once again exhibiting that he makes a better host than Kurt because Kurt forgot that part of the plan completely: they meant to make the bed earlier, but they also meant for Kurt to wake up with the alarm. Dapper as ever, Blaine holds out his hand to take Carole’s suitcase. “Everyone can go back to sleep uninterrupted, including the two of you.”

"You don't have to move on account of us," Burt says. “We got some sleep on the plane. You shouldn’t be worn out before you even get to tonight. Don’t let us interrupt more than we have to.”

"You're our guests," Blaine says to end the argument before Kurt lets himself be talked into agreeing.

“So, buddy, you practicing for tonight?” Burt cracks as he falls instep behind Kurt.

Kurt doesn’t understand the joke at first, but Burt’s hand clapped on his bare back wakes him up enough to remember he’s dressed down in pajama bottoms and nothing else. “Blaine’s too hot for clothes.”

Carole holds her laugh resiliently, her lips pressed tight. His dad guffaws and only looks guilty when Blaine holds a finger to his lips.

“You can save your bawdy jokes for tonight where they belong.” Kurt shrugs into his lightweight robe flung over the dresser from the night before. With an arched eyebrow he asks, “Better?”

Burt isn’t the least bit fazed by the sass. “I hope you don’t think it’s awkward we’re here for your show, because it’s too late for us to turn back.”

Kurt tugs at sheets and strips them off the bed with a satisfying snap. “I couldn’t care less.”

He’s comfortable in his costume and his own skin. A minimalistic costume is hardly more avant-guard than outfits he pulled off in high school with straightjackets or corsets or skirts, and certainly not more outlandish than costumes for some of their Glee Club performances.

Carole laughs. “Those are the exact words Rachel said over the phone in her recruitment spiel. And by Tina to your father about 15 minutes later. They sure turned seeing you into an event.”

“Those two are slicker than telemarketers. I don’t think there’s a person in Lima they didn’t tell to donate. They shook down everyone. You might have more Ohioans in the audience than New Yorkers,” Burt jokes.

“I told them I hoped it would do well.” Kurt smiles at the reminder of his friends taking matters into their own hands to raise funds. Having ambitious friends pays off: Tina and Rachel don’t do things by halves, as the sheer number of people splayed across the apartment floor to show their support in person proves. They contacted nearly everyone they knew, either by phone or Facebook event invites, knowing full well most wouldn’t attend but might give anyway. Tine crafted a script with alternate text for whether the person on the other line would be most motivated by the cause, seeing Kurt, or seeing Kurt in next to nothing.

“Oh god, what phone script did they use on you?” Kurt’s resolve not to care at the tactics as long as the end result is what he wants wavers at the mental reminder of his friends’ inclination toward impropriety. “I told them to be appropriate unless it was more beneficial not to be.”

“They were just having fun, and the only one to worry about it bothering is you. I can’t say I really saw this as the career trajectory of my kid, but we won’t tease you if you don’t want us to tease. We’ll be as serious as we can be at a strip show,” Burt promises with only a twitch at the corner of his mouth to hint at his awareness of how patronizing he’s being.

“Stripping implies wearing much of anything to begin with,” Blaine corrects in his bizarre idea of being helpful. Kurt nudges him. The corner of the sheet Blaine is tucking the mattress into zings away.

“It’s meant to be fun, not a funeral. Laugh at me all you want.”  They had their share of fun at Rachel’s impromptu “dress rehearsal” the night before when listening to him run through lines in sweats wouldn’t do; the evening devolved into raiding Rachel’s shimmer makeup so Kurt could have backup “dancers” who made up their own moves to American Idol karaoke.

No wonder he’s tired.

“It’s mostly classy,” Blaine offers. “Like elegant-skanky.”

“It’s gaudy but you should survive without shielding your eyes in horror at the feathers and jewels and glitter to fit the _Birds of Paradise_ theme,” Kurt corrects. “Which in my opinion is reaching as far as double entendres go, but Broadway Bares has been coming up with titillating themes without repeats for longer than I’ve been alive; they were bound to get flimsy eventually.”

His dad whistles. “That’s a lot of fundraisers.”

Blaine nods. “Still going strong, but also still necessary, so there’s that. Not that I don’t want them to exist, but it’d be nice if they didn’t have to.”

“It’s outlived so many people it wanted to help.” Kurt’s tone doesn’t have the same positive lilt as Blaine’s. He bites his tongue to keep from saying more about how an epidemic shouldn’t have been allowed to last so long that organizations like this need to have a long history or continue to grow more and more each year.

His speech will be kinder; everything he’ll say will focus on what they can do instead of what should have been done. He’ll ask for donations and cross his fingers for either deep pockets or small donations from a lot of people. He’ll smile on stage, as Blaine suggested, and he’ll feel fun and sexy and put the heavy mood on hold or fake it well enough.

Kurt’s mood turns so suddenly at the reminder of the reason he’ll spend the night dancing and reveling.The mood in the room shifts around him.

He focuses on going through the familiar motions of arranging fresh bed sheets until they fall perfectly to do something other than notice how everyone else is watching him.

“Well, since you went through all that trouble, it wouldn’t hurt to lie down for a little,” Carole admits at Blaine’s suggestion that he and Kurt leave them in peace that follows shortly after Kurt’s backslide into a pensive funk.

Carole pulls them each into one more hug before they can go. Burt follows, grabbing Blaine and then Kurt.

“Love you guys.” It’s not a consistent expression they use with each other; his dad says it when he wants him to pay attention to the words.

Kurt always says it back.

“I’ll be good company later,” Kurt adds. He doesn’t specify when.

With his family tucked away, the apartment is suddenly still around Kurt and Blaine. A wave of exhaustion hits and hits hard. Staying up to late playing and then not sleeping when he tries is not the prescribed Broadway routine and it is catching up with him.

“Love you too, you know,” Blaine says. They hold on like one of them might get lost from the other on the way from the bedroom to the couch and drop heavily when they reach it.

“I know.”

Blaine’s hands settle possessively around his torso. The cool slide of Blaine’s wedding band contrasts with Blaine’s heat.

“Sleep if you can.” The rhythm of Blaine’s hushed murmur lulls Kurt into closing his eyes and listening to Blaine breathe. The noise of their soft talking hasn’t caused anyone to stir. The streets outside are as hushed as inside the apartment. Not a single bird chirps. The streets are never truly deserted, but they're as empty as they get.

Despite Blaine’s best efforts and Kurt’s desire for rest, Kurt is stubbornly awake. Performances make him jittery. He trusts in his talent, but he can’t help his nerves. His mind won’t shut off; it knows today is the big day, and he’s been awake long enough that he can’t forget. He feels like he might be sick.

The dreams don’t help either - In absence of a character to build a world around, his mind fixates on the reason behind the show’s existence and he’s stuck with dream after dream of a time he’s grateful he wasn’t alive for. Blaine’s the one who thinks about other lives and destiny and fate and what might have been; the what ifs only come to Kurt in dreams when rationality can’t scoff the ideas away.

“Slow down,” Blaine murmurs, and Kurt knows Blaine means the pounding of his heart. He holds his hand over Kurt’s heart. “Are you nervous?”

Blaine’s nose scrunches, and he’s well aware by now how cute Kurt finds it. It’s an invitation to talk.

Kurt shakes his head even though yes, of course he is nervous. He’s always nervous on stage, but that’s not the reason why he can’t rest. He works through it each performance and tonight will be no different. He doesn’t doubt his ability to choke down those feelings and focus on ones that will help his performance.

“You’re all in your head lately,” Blaine observes. His fingers fuss and smooth along the seams of Kurt’s robe. “Do you want to talk about it? Or sing about it?”

Kurt has had harder to explain moods. He closes his eyes and tries. “I could just focus on the job, instead of getting all existential about stripping. It’s not like I’m changing the world one G-string at a time. I’m barely making a dent in the funds they need. But I can’t stop thinking about why I’m volunteering. Why this event exists. I can’t separate them. It can’t just all be fun and sequins. It’s like emotional whiplash. One moment I’m having fun and the next I remember. Everything I do seems so silly after that.”

Blaine considers for a moment, fingers resting steadily on Kurt’s waist, before announcing, “I’m going to put on _The Normal Heart_.”

“That is not conducive to sleeping,” Kurt protests. It’s not an easy movie to watch – Blaine will cry at least twice and Kurt will grow more pensive than he feels now. The first time they saw _The Normal Heart_ they were fiancés and Blaine was new to New York and it was surreal to both of them to see a place they were beginning to know twisted in another time. Kurt never held so still until the moment Blaine leaned into him for comfort. He forgets, sometimes, to reach for Blaine until after Blaine reaches for him.

Kurt doesn’t stop Blaine as he pads over to their TV in his bare feet and crouches to find the DVD. They always have a reason for picking that movie. Kurt hugs a pillow to his chest while he waits. He kicks at the throw blanket Blaine draped over him until he gets it to cover his feet.

They fit back together with practiced ease, shifting until they get it right, Blaine nestled between the couch back and Kurt pressed to his front with the laptop tucked between his knees and his chest. Kurt has had Blaine for longer than the couch or the mattress in their bedroom: years together have made Blaine the most comfortable thing in his life.

Blaine reaches over Kurt to fast-forward past the beginning, and Kurt is guiltily grateful he doesn’t have to put his emotions through the whole movie. Blaine lets the DVD play when they get to the early stages of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He offers Kurt one earbud and keeps the other for himself. They watch Ned’s ineffectual calls on the street for donations for Gay Cancer followed by Ned’s struggle to get any governmental funding or even a response.

Blaine nudges him at the dance that doubles as a fundraiser for GMHC. Kurt’s attention sharpens. He takes in the disco ball, the awkward shimmies, the temporary reprieve from the building sense of helplessness and doom. _I Will Survive_ pumping in the background cuts off to announce how much the fundraiser paid off.It’s a satisfying moment of triumph in the mix of so much loss.

Blaine’s meaning is about as subtle as the song choice.

“You’re sweet,” Kurt tells him. The dance continues to unfold on the screen in front of him.

“I think it's amazing what you’re doing, Kurt. Even if it doesn’t feel like enough to you. Even if it seems like one silly event. Even if you're not a campaigner, or a brilliant public speaker, you can make art and help people."

Kurt smiles fondly at the goals that have become Blaine’s mantra when deciding what projects to pursue.

"Think back to when AIDS organizations first began. How no one seemed to _care_. Your parents are here. We're surrounded by friends who want to support you and this cause. I think about the arch of history and all that the people who came before us did to get us here and it’s moments like this, with our living room full of people, that make you realize how many lives have touches ours, directly or indirectly, and how much better off we are because people do care.”

Kurt closes his eyes and borrows Blaine’s worldview on how his life has been touched. He has his health thanks to people who fought to curtail an epidemic. He has rights that have been fought for for decades. He has his life. He has his husband who he loves just as dearly. Blaine is talking about kids someday and Kurt is listening. Even with all the shit he’s been through, he feels lucky for Blaine and his family and the life they have planned. He knows he has people like the ones on the screen to thank, even for something that seems as trivial as throwing a dance to raise money.

“ _Imagine if we had this when we were young. No fear, no shame_ ,” Ned says on screen, calling their attention back to the pair slow dancing together, both of them clinging on to each other like life preservers.

Blaine holds his breath. Kurt doesn’t need to see the screen to know that Blaine’s eyes will shine when he turns around. 

Felix’s fingers slide in Ned’s hair. “ _All I was imagining all those years was you_.”

Blaine sniffs audibly. He always cries in this scene. The movie is full of horrors, but Blaine is a hopeless romantic at heart. The first time they watched it they were holding hands, Blaine’s thumb pressed into Kurt’s engagement ring.

Kurt laces their fingers together. “I’m so lucky I found you so soon.”

Blaine nods, knowing Kurt will sense the movement he can’t see.

Kurt twists in Blaine’s arms. The tears he expects are there but not falling freely. Kurt pushes into a kiss that catches Blaine’s wobbling smile. Their lips fit together with the same practiced ease that their bodies do in the small space the couch allows them. Blaine’s fingers slide into hair at the base of Kurt’s neck to hold him as close as possible.

Their apartment will be nothing but motion soon, a blur of too many guests vying for the bathroom and clouding the air with hairspray and dressing up for a night out on the town. They’ll joke about whether Kurt’s patent shimmy will make it into the choreography. Blaine will sneak backstage at the show as if they haven’t been together all day and Kurt can tease that next year both of them will be ready for the curtain to go up, since they always work so much better as a pair. When it’s time, he’ll choke down his nerves and get ready for his one small part that means more to him than he thought it would.

For now, he’s thankful for what they have had while they’re young.


End file.
